The premier issue of a new magazine, Notorious, featured an article by Sean Bosker that described his experience of “going to confession” at four New York-area Catholic Churches. In his piece, “I Confess: Gettin’ Off Easy,” Bosker instructed non-Catholics how to engage in a mock confession. Himself a non-Catholic, Bosker detailed what it was like for him to confess to various sins—all of which involved sex—and then receive “penance” for his transgressions. He advised readers to “Remember that priests are probably as grateful for some discussion of T and A in the afternoon as anyone.”
Bosker “went to confession” at New York’s St. Brigid’s and St. Patrick’s Cathedral, as well as Blessed Sacrament in Staten Island and Our Lady of Sorrows in New Jersey.
The Catholic League’s news release was as follows:
“David Anthony, the publisher of Notorious, says that his magazine was conceived as a cross between GQ and Playboy on the one hand, and Cosmopolitan and Vogue on the other. He failed: it is more like a cross between the Star and a Jack Chick publication.
“What Bosker did puts the lie to the notion that there is a strong inverse relationship between education and prejudice. While it is true that those with high degrees of formal education tend to be less racist and less anti-Semitic than others, history shows that when anti-Catholicism is measured, those who are the doyens of the culture tend also to be the most bigoted. Notorious is only the latest expression of that verity, demonstrating once again why anti-Catholicism has been labeled ‘the last respectable bias.’”
